Part 565

"The period of Sir John Shore's rule as Governor-General, from 1793 to 1798 [after which he became Lord Teignmouth], was uneventful. In 1798, Lord Mornington, better known as the Marquis of Wellesley, arrived in India, already inspired with imperial projects which were destined to change the map of the country. Mornington was the friend and favourite of Pitt, from whom he is thought to have derived his far-reaching political vision, and his antipathy to the French name. From the first he laid down as his guiding principle, that the English must be the one paramount power in the peninsula, and that Native princes could only retain the insignia of sovereignty by surrendering their political independence. The history of India since his time has been but the gradual development of this policy, which received its finishing touch when Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India on the 1st of January, 1877. To frustrate the possibility of a French invasion of India, led by Napoleon in person, was the governing idea of Wellesley's foreign policy. France at this time, and for many years later, filled the place afterwards occupied by Russia in the minds of Indian statesmen. Nor was the danger so remote as might now be thought. French regiments guarded and overawed the Nizam of Haidarabad. The soldiers of Sindhia, the military head of the Marhatta Confederacy, were disciplined and led by French adventurers. Tipu Sultan of Mysore carried on a secret correspondence with the French Directorate, allowed a tree of liberty to be planted in his dominions, and enrolled himself in a republican club as 'Citizen Tipu.' The islands of Mauritius and Bourbon afforded a convenient half-way rendezvous for French intrigue and for the assembling of a hostile expedition. Above all, Napoleon Buonaparte was then in Egypt, dreaming of the conquests of Alexander, and no man knew in what direction he might turn his hitherto unconquered legions. Wellesley conceived the scheme of crushing for ever the French hopes in Asia, by placing himself at the head of a great Indian confederacy. In Lower Bengal, the sword of Clive and the policy of Warren Hastings had made the English paramount. Before the end of the century, our power was consolidated from the seaboard to Benares, high up the Gangetic valley. … In 1801, the treaty of Lucknow made over to the British the Doab, or fertile tract between the Ganges and the Jumna, together with Rohilkhand. In Southern India, our possessions were chiefly confined, before Lord Wellesley, to the coast Districts of Madras and Bombay. Wellesley resolved to make the British supreme as far as Delhi in Northern India, and to compel the great powers of the south to enter into subordinate relations to the Company's government. The intrigues of the Native princes gave him his opportunity for carrying out this plan without breach of faith. The time had arrived when the English must either become supreme in India, or be driven out of it. The Mughal Empire was completely broken up; and the sway had to pass either to the local Muhammadan governors of that empire, or to the Hindu Confederacy represented by the Marhattas, or to the British. Lord Wellesley determined that it should pass to the British. His work in Northern India was at first easy. The treaty of Lucknow in 1801 made us territorial rulers as far as the heart of the present North-Western Provinces, and established our political influence in Oudh. Beyond those limits, the northern branches of the Marhattas practically held sway, with the puppet emperor in their hands. Lord Wellesley left them untouched for a few years, until the second Marhatta war (1802-1804) gave him an opportunity for dealing effectively with their nation as a whole. In Southern India, he saw that the Nizam at Haidarabad stood in need of his protection, and he converted him into a useful follower throughout the succeeding struggle. The other Muhammadan power of the south, Tipu Sultan of Mysore, could not be so easily handled. {1730} Lord Wellesley resolved to crush him, and had ample provocation for so doing. The third power of Southern India—namely, the Marhatta Confederacy—was so loosely organized, that Lord Wellesley seems at first to have hoped to live on terms with it. When several years of fitful alliance had convinced him that he had to choose between the supremacy of the Marhattas or of the British in Southern India, he did not hesitate to decide. Lord Wellesley first addressed himself to the weakest of the three southern powers, the Nizam of Haidarabad. Here he won a diplomatic success, which turned a possible rival into a subservient ally. The French battalions at Haidarabad were disbanded, and the Nizam bound himself by treaty not to take any European into his service without the consent of the English Government,—a clause since inserted in every engagement entered into with Native powers. Wellesley next turned the whole weight of his resources against Tipu, whom Cornwallis had defeated, but not subdued. Tipu's intrigues with the French were laid bare, and he was given an opportunity of adhering to the new subsidiary system. On his refusal, war was declared, and Wellesley came down in viceregal state to Madras to organize the expedition in person, and to watch over the course of events. One English army marched into Mysore from Madras, accompanied by a contingent from the Nizam. Another advanced from the western coast. Tipu, after a feeble resistance in the field, retired into Seringapatam, and, when his capital was stormed, died fighting bravely in the breach (1799). Since the battle of Plassey, no event so greatly impressed the Native imagination as the capture of Seringapatam, which won for General Harris a peerage, and for Wellesley an Irish marquisate. In dealing with the territories of Tipu, Wellesley acted with moderation. The central portion, forming the old state of Mysore, was restored to an infant representative of the Hindu Rajas, whom Haidar Ali had dethroned; the rest of Tipu's dominion was partitioned between the Nizam, the Marhattas, and the English. At about the same time, the Karnatic, or the part of South-Eastern India ruled by the Nawab of Arcot, and also the principality of Tanjore, were placed under direct British administration, thus constituting the Madras Presidency almost as it has existed to the present day. … The Marhattas had been the nominal allies of the English in both their wars with Tipu. But they had not rendered active assistance, nor were they secured to the English side as the Nizam now was. The Marhatta powers at this time were five in number. The recognised head of the confederacy was the Peshwa of Poona, who ruled the hill country of the Western Ghats, the cradle of the Marhatta race. The fertile Province of Guzerat was annually harried by the horsemen of the Gaekwar of Baroda. In Central India, two military leaders, Sindhia of Gwalior and Holkar of Indore, alternately held the pre-eminence. Towards the east, the Bhonsla Raja of Nagpur reigned from Berar to the coast of Orissa. Wellesley laboured to bring these several Marhatta powers within the net of his subsidiary system. In 1802, the necessities of the Peshwa, who had been defeated by Holkar, and driven as a fugitive into British territory, induced him to sign the treaty of Bassein. By this he pledged himself to the British to hold communications with no other power, European or Native, and granted to us Districts for the maintenance of a subsidiary force. This greatly extended the English territorial influence in the Bombay Presidency. But it led to the second Marhatta war, as neither Sindhia nor the Raja of Nagpur would tolerate the Peshwa's betrayal of the Marhatta independence. The campaigns which followed are perhaps the most glorious in the history of the British arms in India. The general plan, and the adequate provision of resources, were due to the Marquis of Wellesley, as also the indomitable spirit which refused to admit of defeat. The armies were led by Sir Arthur Wellesley (afterwards Duke of Wellington) and General (afterwards Lord) Lake. Wellesley operated in the Deccan, where in a few short months, he won the decisive victories of Assaye [September 23, 1803] and Argaum [November 28], and captured Ahmednagar. Lake's campaign in Hindustan was equally brilliant, although it has received less notice from historians. He won pitched battles at Aligarh [August 29] and Laswari [November 1, 1803], and took the cities of Delhi and Agra. He scattered the French troops of Sindhia, and at the same time stood forward as the champion of the Mughal Emperor in his hereditary capital. Before the end of 1803, both Sindhia and the Bhonsla Raja of Nagpur sued for peace. Sindhia ceded all claims to the territory north of the Jumna, and left the blind old Emperor Shah Alam once more under British protection. The Bhonsla forfeited Orissa to the English, who had already occupied it with a flying column in 1803, and Berar to the Nizam, who gained fresh territory by every act of complaisance to the British Government. … The concluding years of Wellesley's rule were occupied with a series of operations against Holkar, which brought little credit on the British name. The disastrous retreat of Colonel Monson through Central India (1804) recalled memories of the convention of Wargaum, and of the destruction of Colonel Baillie's force by Haidar Ali. The repulse of Lake in person at the siege of Bhartpur (Bhurtpore) is memorable as an instance of a British army in India having to turn back with its object unaccomplished (1805). Bhartpur was not finally taken till 1827. Lord Wellesley during his six years of office carried out almost every part of his territorial scheme. In Northern India, Lord Lake's campaigns brought the North-Western provinces (the ancient Madhyadesa) under British rule, together with the custody of the puppet emperor. The new Districts were amalgamated with those previously acquired from the Nawab Wazir of Oudh into the 'Ceded and Conquered Provinces.' This partition of Northern India remained till the Sikh wars of 1844 and 1847 gave us the Punjab."

_W. W. Hunter, Brief History of the Indian People, chapter 13._

ALSO IN: _W. H. Maxwell, Life of the Duke of Wellington, volume 1, chapters 2-12._

_J. M. Wilson. Memoir of Wellington, volume 1, chapters 2-9._

_G. B. Malleson, Decisive Battles of India, chapters 9-10._

_W. H. Hutton, The Marquess Wellesley._

_J. S. Cotton, Mountstuart Elphinstone, chapter 4._

{1731}

INDIA: A. D. 1805-1816. Reversal of Lord Wellesley's policy. Sepoy revolt at Vellore. Influence established with Runjeet Singh and the Sikhs. Conquest of the Mauritius. The Ghorka War.

"The retreat of Monson was not only a disastrous blow to British prestige, but ruined for a while the reputation of Lord Wellesley. Because a Mahratta freebooter had broken loose in Hindustan, the Home authorities imagined that all the Mahratta powers had risen against the imperial policy of the Governor-General. Lord Wellesley was recalled from his post, and Lord Cornwallis was sent out to take his place, to reverse the policy of his illustrious predecessor, to scuttle out of Western Hindustan, to restore all the ceded territories, to surrender all the captured fortresses, and to abandon large tracts of country to be plundered and devastated by the Mahrattas, as they had been from the days of Sivaji to those of Wellesley and Lake. Before Lord Cornwallis reached Bengal the political outlook had brightened. … But Lord Cornwallis was sixty-seven years of age, and had lost the nerve which he had displayed in his wars against Tippu; and he would have ignored the turn of the tide, and persisted in falling back on the old policy of conciliation and non-intervention, had not death cut short his career before he had been ten weeks in the country. Sir George Barlow, a Bengal civilian, succeeded for a while to the post of Governor-General, as a provisional arrangement. He had been a member of Council under both Wellesley and Cornwallis, and he halted between the two. He refused to restore the conquered territories to Sindia and the Bhonsla, but he gave back the Indore principality to Holkar, together with the captured fortresses. Worst of all, he annulled most of the protective treaties with the Rajput princes on the ground that they had deserted the British government during Monson's retreat from Jaswant Rao Holkar. For some years the policy of the British government was a half-hearted system of non-intervention. … The Mahratta princes were left to plunder and collect chout [a blackmail extortion, levied by the Mahrattas for a century] in Rajputana, and practically to make war on each other, so long as they respected the territories of the British government and its allies. … All this while an under-current of intrigue was at work between Indian courts, which served in the end to revive wild hopes of getting rid of British supremacy, and rekindling the old aspirations for war and rapine. In 1806 the peace of India was broken by an alarm from a very different quarter. In those days India was so remote from the British Isles that the existence of the British government mainly depended on the loyalty of its sepoy armies. Suddenly it was discovered that the Madras army was on the brink of mutiny. The British authorities at Madras had introduced an obnoxious head-dress resembling a European hat, in the place of the old time-honoured turban, and had, moreover, forbidden the sepoys to appear on parade with earrings and caste marks. India was astounded by a revolt of the Madras sepoys at the fortress of Vellore, about eight miles to the westward of Arcot. … The garrison at Vellore consisted of about 400 Europeans and 1,500 sepoys. At midnight, without warning, the sepoys rose in mutiny. One body fired on the European barracks until half the soldiers were killed or wounded. Another body fired on the houses of the British officers, and shot them down as they rushed out to know the cause of the uproar. All this while provisions were distributed amongst the sepoys by the Mysore princes, and the flag of Mysore was hoisted over the fortress. Fortunately the news was carried to Arcot, where Colonel Gillespie commanded a British garrison. Gillespie at once galloped to Vellore with a troop of British dragoons and two field guns. The gates of Vellore were blown open; the soldiers rushed in; 400 mutineers were cut down, and the outbreak was over. … In 1807 Lord Minto succeeded Barlow as Governor-General. He broke the spell of non-intervention. … Lord Minto's main work was to keep Napoleon and the French out of India. The north-west frontier was still vulnerable, but the Afghans had retired from the Punjab, and the once famous Runjeet Singh had founded a Sikh kingdom between the Indus and the Sutlej. As far as the British were concerned, the Sikhs formed a barrier against the Afghans; and Runjeet Singh was apparently friendly, for he had refused to shelter Jaswant Rao Holkar in his flight from Lord Lake. But there was no knowing what Runjeet Singh might do if the French found their way to Lahore. To crown the perplexity, the Sikh princes on the British side of the river Sutlej, who had done homage to the British government during the campaigns of Lord Lake, were being conquered by Runjeet Singh, and were appealing to the British government for protection. In 1808-9 a young Bengal civilian, named Charles Metcalfe, was sent on a mission to Lahore. The work before him was difficult and complicated, and somewhat trying to the nerves. The object was to secure Runjeet Singh as a useful ally against the French and Afghans, whilst protecting the Sikh states on the British side of the Sutlej, namely, Jhind, Nabha, and Patiala. Runjeet Singh was naturally disgusted at being checked by British interference. It was unfair, he said, for the British to wait until he had conquered the three states, and then to demand possession. Metcalfe cleverly dropped the question of justice, and appealed to Runjeet Singh's self-interest. By giving up the three states, Runjeet Singh would secure an alliance with the British, a strong frontier on the Sutlej, and freedom to push his conquests on the north and west. Runjeet Singh took the hint. He withdrew his pretensions from the British side of the Sutlej, and professed a friendship which remained unbroken until his death in 1839; but he knew what he was about. He conquered Cashmere on the north, and he wrested Peshawar from the Afghans; but he refused to open his dominions to British trade, and he was jealous to the last of any attempt to enter his territories. … Meanwhile the war against France and Napoleon had extended to eastern waters. The island of the Mauritius had become a French depot for frigates and privateers, which swept the seas from Madagascar to Java, until the East India Company reckoned its losses by millions, and private traders were brought to the brink of ruin. Lord Minto sent one expedition [1810], which wrested the Mauritius from the French; and he conducted another expedition in person, which wrested the island of Java from the Dutch, who at that time were the allies of France. The Mauritius has remained a British possession until this day, but Java was restored to Holland at the conclusion of the war. … Meanwhile war clouds were gathering on the southern slopes of the Himalayas. {1732} Down to the middle of the 18th century, the territory of Nipal had been peopled by a peaceful and industrious race of Buddhists known as Newars, but about the year 1767, when the British had taken over the Bengal provinces, the Newars were conquered by a Rajput tribe from Cashmere, known as Ghorkas. The Ghorka conquest of Nipal was as complete as the Norman conquest of England. The Ghorkas established a military despotism with Brahmanical institutions, and parcelled out the country amongst feudal nobles known as Bharadars. … During the early years of the 19th century the Ghorkas began to encroach on British territory, annexing villages and revenues from Darjeeling to Simla without right or reason. They were obviously bent on extending their dominion southward to the Ganges, and for a long time aggressions were overlooked for the sake of peace. At last two districts were appropriated to which the Ghorkas had not a shadow of a claim, and it was absolutely necessary to make a stand against their pretensions. Accordingly, Lord Minto sent an ultimatum to Khatmandu, declaring that unless the districts were restored they would be recovered by force of arms. Before the answer arrived, Lord Minto was succeeded in the post of Governor-General by Lord Moira, better known by his later title of Marquis of Hastings. Lord Moira landed at Calcutta in 1813. Shortly after his arrival an answer was received from the Ghorka government, that the disputed districts belonged to Nipal, and would not be surrendered. Lord Moira at once fixed a day on which the districts were to be restored; and when the day had passed without any action being taken by the Ghorkas, a British detachment entered the districts and set up police stations. … The council of Bharadars resolved on war, but they did not declare it in European fashion. A Ghorka army suddenly entered the disputed districts, surrounded the police stations, and murdered many of the constables, and then returned to Khatmandu to await the action of the British government in the way of reprisals. The war against the Ghorkas was more remote and more serious than the wars against the Mahrattas. … Those who have ascended the Himalayas to Darjeeling or Simla may realise something of the difficulties of an invasion of Nipal. The British army advanced in four divisions by four different routes. … General David Ochterlony, who advanced his division along the valley of the Sutlej, gained the most brilliant successes. He was one of the half-forgotten heroes of the East India Company. … For five months in the worst season of the year he carried one fortress after another, until the enemy made a final stand at Maloun on a shelf of the Himalayas. The Ghorkas made a desperate attack on the British works, but the attempt failed; and when the British batteries were about to open fire, the Ghorka garrison came to terms, and were permitted to march out with the honours of war. The fall of Maloun shook the faith of the Ghorka government in their heaven-built fortresses. Commissioners were sent to conclude a peace. Nipal agreed to cede Kumaon in the west, and the southern belt of forest and jungle known as the Terai. It also agreed to receive a British Resident at Khatmandu. Lord Moira had actually signed the treaty, when the Ghorkas raised the question of whether the Terai included the forest or only the swamp. War was renewed. Ochterlony advanced an army within fifty miles of Khatmandu, and then the Ghorkas concluded the treaty [1816], and the British army withdrew from Nipal. The Terai, however, was a bone of contention for many years afterwards. Nothing was said about a subsidiary army, and to this day Nipal is outside the pale of subsidiary alliances; but Nipal is bound over not to take any European into her service without the consent of the British government."

_J. T. Wheeler, India under British Rule, chapter 3._

ALSO IN: _J. D. Cunningham, History of the Sikhs, chapters 5-6._

_E. Thornton, History of British Empire in India, chapters 21-24 (volume 4)._

INDIA: A. D. 1816-1819. Suppression of the Pindaris. Overthrow of the Mahratta power. The last of the Peshwas.